In an IC card used as various cards, precious data are stored. For this reason, an IC module mounted on the IC card also requires reliability.
A conventional IC module, as shown in FIG. 8, is constituted by a terminal plate 1 in which connection terminal patterns 3 for external power supply, signal connection, and grounding are arranged on one surface of an insulating substrate 2, an IC chip 4 arranged on the rear surface of the terminal plate 1, bonding wires 15 for electrically connecting pad portions of the IC chip 4 to the rear surfaces of the connection terminal patterns 3 through holes 16 of the insulating substrate 2, and a sealing member 5, consisting of an insulating resin, for protecting the IC chip 4 and the bonding wires 15.
In using, keeping, or the like of IC cards, the IC cards tend to be very easily influenced by external force such as bending or impact. For this reason, external force also acts on the IC modules such that the IC modules are damaged.
Therefore, in a prior art, as shown in FIG. 9, a ring-shaped reinforcing member 60, consisting of a hard material such as metal or ceramic, for reinforcing the sealing member 5 is attached, and external force is received by the reinforcing member 60 to make a device for preventing damage of an IC module. However, even in this structure, damage caused by external force cannot be sufficiently prevented.
More specifically, two types of manners are mainly known as damage manners of an IC module. One is caused by cracking of the IC chip 4, and the other is caused by disconnection of the bonding wires 15 due to peeling between the insulating substrate 2 and the sealing member 5 as shown in FIG. 10.
In this case, an IC module in which a conventional ring-shaped reinforcing member 60 shown in FIG. 9 is provided is sufficiently effective in reinforcement for the cracking of the IC chip 4. However, this IC module is not sufficiently effective in preventing disconnection of the bonding wires 15 caused by the latter peeling between the insulating substrate 2 and the sealing member 5 because prevention of peeling depends on the adhesive strength between the reinforcing member 60 and the insulating substrate 2 only by an adhesive agent 13 and because the adhesive strength depends on the strength of the insulating substrate 2 itself.
In other words, when external force shown in FIG. 10 acts on the terminal plate 1, the insulating substrate 2 is relatively easily peeled from the reinforcing member 60. For this reason, not only the sealing member 5 but also the bonding wires 15 are disadvantageously disconnected.
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above circumstances, and has as its object to provide a low-cost IC card which can prevent disconnection of a bonding wire caused by peeling between an insulating substrate and a sealing member by external force and which is strong as a whole card.